<How many computer users nowadays have ever seen or used a punch card? I have a couple in a box as souvenirs. That 72 is especially bizarre. How many people these days could even tell you where that strange number comes from? But lots of software does it.>
I used the columns after 72 for sequence numbers so I could use the sorter to put a deck of cards back in order if (when) I dropped them. Up to 72, I used for FORTRAN code. lol ... and on a good day I could get two or three runs at the school computer.
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Those of us who started computing in the 1960s will remember that:
80 was the width of the card. Most programs in those days were written in FORTRAN (Fortran I, II or IV): one instruction per line which had special formatting:
Cols 1-6 were the numeric label number, as in GOTO 1000 (or if column 1 was "C" then the whole line was a comment)
Col 7 was a continuation line: any character there and the line is regarded as a continuation of the previous line
Col 8-72 are for program instruction
Col 73-80 8 columns were available as a comment area. Anything you wrote there was ignored. Sometimes it was used to number the cards sequentially if the program was in a "completed" form. Dropping a deck of several hundred cards was a potential disaster.
The cards were punched on a hand punch which allowed punching in any combination of usually up to 3 keys in 10 (iirc) vertical positions on the card. You got to be very fast with this and large right arm muscles since it was done one-handed.
The expensive electrical card punches (the size of a desk) printed the ascii equivalent across the top of the card at the same time as printing it.
Ah, the good old days...
-- Bernard Hill Braeburn Software Author of Music Publisher system Music Software written by musicians for musicians http://www.braeburn.co.uk Selkirk, Scotland
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